Strangely enough, they flat out bolted. Even cougars that are eating run away without a second’s worth of hesitation.

In case you didn’t catch all those statistics, when startled by humans, big cats abandon their kills. Therefore, they have to kill more animals to eat. As they are finding, in areas where there are high human populations mixed with big cats, cougars tend to kill more animals. Since cougars then have to kill more animals, they run a higher chance of running into more people. Pretty wild isn’t it?

Hopefully something can actually be done with research other than to add knowledge to the collective brain of animal stewardship. Human populations are only expanding and cities are only getting bigger. Lions are already adapting to encroaching people in their native ranges. At least for now, be thankful mountain lions are running from human voices.